A merchant often receives a payment instrument (e.g., credit card, pre-paid card, charge card, debit card, smart card, stored-value card, etc.) to facilitate payment for items (e.g., goods, services, information, etc) a consumer wishes to purchase. The merchant may use a point of sale (POS) device to request authorization for the purchase by swiping the payment instrument through the POS device. The POS device then usually communicates to a distributed processing site—which may be local and/or regional—acting as a concentrator and providing value add services. Normally, the authorization request is forwarded from the distributed processing site to a central processing site for authorization processing. The central processing site acts as a “large footprint” because of it physical size, amount of processing power and large storage capability, and may also include complex risk data and strategies, which are not found within distributed processing sites. After a risk assessment for the transaction is processed, the central processing site transmits, via the distributed processing site or directly, the results of the payment authorization to the POS device based upon the perceived risk.
There are occasions, however, where a distributed processing site, and not a central processing site, may authorize payment. Currently, the authorization at distributed processing sites is based upon factors, such as, for example, floor limits, negative and positive file lists, and possibly some accumulation of recent transaction instrument usage. These relatively simple factors are adequate for some situations (e.g., payment requests for small amounts, payment requests from merchants within the same zip code as the user's billing address, and the like), but many situations require distributed processing sites to forward the authorization request to a central processing site because of the central processing site's greater ability to assess risk by utilizing more complex factors. Because a central processing site may be connected to multiple distributed processing sites, the central processing site may become too busy and not operate efficiently (i.e., not transmitting an authorization or decline within a relatively short period of time), or may become so busy that it may not completely fail to transmit an indication of authorization or decline. Furthermore, a central processing site may also transmit inaccurate authorizations or declines if it becomes too busy. Thus, systems and methods are needed that allow distributed processing sites to process and transmit payment authorization and declines for transactions requiring more complex risk assessment.